A Net in Time

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Pearl Seeker: Seek to be Thankful

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This chapter was quite simple.  We live in a land of plenty, a land of ease, do we understand how blessed we are?

With that blessing, do we take time to say thanks?

For our house, our health, our medical system, our food, our ease of getting around and even for our freedom to believe as we will.  Do we stop and thank you Lord for all the blessings he bestows on us.

I have to admit though, I stopped at the line “We are the most blessed people in the world”.  I don’t agree. 

Why?

Because yes, in North America we do have a lot of material blessings and relative freedoms.  Things are getting tighter and harder for us, but we do live in a land where living is easy.  BUT.. and here’s the catcher… We are NOT the most blessed in the world.

There are blessings to be found in every inch of this continent, blessings of life, laughter, untold beauty in surroundings, and so much more.  So whether one lives in North America or the dark of the jungle, blessings still abound. 

And therefore REGARDLESS of where we live… thanksgiving to God is required.  We are to be thankful in all circumstance, content with where the Lord God has placed us, easy or not.   And you know what happens if we truly are thankful?   We learn to be content.

Contentment in all circumstances, started with prayers of thanksgiving to God.  Talk to the Lord more as you go through your day, talk to him, thank him, praise him for his mercies, for forgiving you for your sins, and all the little things that pass your way.   It is GOOD to do so.

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Pearl Seeker: Seek What is Most Important

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 Quote from the book “We all need hope, hope that God will fix our sorrows and relationships, hope that God will fix our children and their problems, hope that God will restore us to the family were we once belonged, and hope that God still loves us no matter what we have done.” p.123
“We must love others like Jesus continues to love us.  We must be on our toes and look for those that God sends our way.”  (p.124)
 

 Consider the depth of God’s love for us.  God loves us so much his son willingly died for us.  That’s the depth of God’s love.

So what do we do with that love? Accept it.
Let his love mean something, let it change us.

Consider most brand new Christians.  What do they do?
They tell everyone they know about the miracle that God has wrought in their lives.  As a result… the lives of their friends are changed.  The church grows.   Granted, it doesn’t always work like that, sometimes faith has a cost. 

We need to consider what God has called us into though.
Not some random grouping, but into a family.
A family loves and cares for each other.
Accepting each others foibles, our weaknesses, our ‘not having let go of sin’ parts.
But as families go… we help each other along the way.
Jollying, encouraging, exhorting, teaching each other along the way. 

So keep your ears, eyes, feet, mouth and heart alert!   God might be sending a new family member your way, that you can help find their way home.

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Pearl Seeker: Seek to be Just A Christian

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Know Before Whom You Stand. this was a message from a mantel the Germans tried to destroy during the night of Glass.  During the world war.  They were unable to do so.  This was a reminder to the Jewish leader to always remember whom he served.  Question left with… do I know whom I serve?  What reminds me of that?

I have to admit,
this chapter and I just didn’t sync.  It felt like it jumped around and I
just couldn’t follow it, so this is what I picked out.


The question we have before us is this…what does it mean to be a Christian, JUST a Christian.   

We aren’t forced to learn about God, we aren’t forced to do his will, so what makes us a Christian?

The question I suppose is this, do we want to stay JUST a Christian or do we want our Christianity to matter, to make a difference?   How do we want to show our love for God?  But being lukewarm, not really caring to know more?   Should we then query if we truly are Christians then?   If we don’t act like God matters (by spending time in his word, going about his business etc) then are we truly Just a Christian?

Make being Just a Christian a pivotal part of who you are as a believing person. Be a person of action, of obedience and submission to what he asks of you. 

We can choose to obey God, to be submissive to his will, or we can chose to not be submissive to him, to follow the path that Satan would have us.  And having this awareness, even if we mess things up, when we turn back to the Lord he is rich in mercy.  Quick to forgive us and welcome us back.   So be “Just” a Christian, willing and active, obedient to his call, learning more about him all the time.

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Pearl Seeker: Seek Second Chances

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I have to admit, the opening section to this chapter had me wanting to argue with it.   I understood her point… we have to be mindful that the stuff in our lives doesn’t become more important to us than golf…but at the same time I wanted to argue saying.. but someone has to do the laundry and run the errands, we can’t all run out to conferences and the mission field.  Someone has to mind the gates at home.    It just makes me wonder sometimes… if we all sat at the feet of Jesus and just listened and learned from him….who would get the work done?   Who would help Martha?


We can’t just learn .. we have to DO as well. 

So I guess that’s where the dichotomy comes in right?   How easy it is to think.. I have to do this that or the other thing to do, that it’s so easy to get distracted from the need to do the learning first, so that we can be about the doing.

It’s easy for me to say .. hey…those things you do for pleasure… be mindful they don’t take over your life.  Like the fellow in her intro who loved golf so much he was missing out on the rest of life that God had given him.   I love to read.. and sometimes I’d rather stay home and read a good book than I would want to go to church… so it’s choices to make.  We need to make them in GOD’s favour, not our own.   I frequently tell my lad, Satan has done an excellent job of making us a very selfish people, focused on our own wants and needs.  We need to as believers actively fight against that. 

Thomas Aquinas tells us this: “The things we love tell us what we are”.

So what does my life tell others what I love?   What it does tell others about what you love?

Do you know that the Lord waits patiently for us to come to him?  To want to learn from him?   He comes over and over and over.. waiting patiently.  Won’t you make a choice?  A choice to give up that thing that right now causes you pleasure and has you get a greater pleasure…learning of the Lord.  Learn from him, live out what you learn, so that you can eagerly tell others more about the one you claim to love.    Show your love to the Lord.   Learn from him.

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©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

A Pearl Seeker: A Spiritual Mindset

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Intro…Remember the Alamo,  choice given,  step over the line and fight, or go home.  As Christians we step over the line to go with God rather than stay with the old.  Once we step over we can’t go back.

People, very human people, wrote the bible.  God chose them, as holy people,  people serving him,  to write down his words.

We are introduced to Ezra,  prophet, who kept the physical copy of the Torah.  He was a scribe, part of an educated respected class.   This copy was scrolls that would be big and bulky.  They travelled 900 miles through hostile territory with God minding his back.  Why?

Ezra 7:10   God’s hand was on him because Ezra studied God’s word with an Intent to know it, to live it and to teach it to others.

Be a doer of the word.  Know it, do it. 
Have that hunger to know his word and to be changed by it.
To live out that change.
My thoughts: 
This is a good reminder.. you know?  
To think about the steps the Ezra took.  First to know the word of the Lord.  He studied it extensively, wrote it out as part of his work, and yet.. even though he studied it and knew it for his work, even in his off-time, God’s word was still that important to him.
But it wasn’t just a matter of studying it, he allowed it to change him.  He lived out what he learned and knew of the Lord God.
And having lived it… he taught it to others. 
Isn’t that what we should do?   Teach others WHY we live as we do.  
If we follow these steps, don’t you think Christianity, our faith, our beliefs, would become contagious?  Helping to turn the hearts of others to God.
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Pearl Seekers: The Good Part

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Ms. Blackmon opens this chapter talking about spending time in the Kitchen, around the table, laughing, joking, talking, sharing the things of God. Taking that needed time to just slow down and show the things of God to each.

As we move into the meat of the chapter we find Mary and Martha serving as hosts. Martha is scurrying around getting things done, Mary is chillin’, spending time with the Messiah.  Martha is getting a bit steamed.. working hard, seeing her sister chillin’, and she wants some help and directly says so, asking the Lord to tell Mary to give her a hand.

Now I have to admit, I saw this and hadn’t really thought of it before.  I wonder why Martha didn’t just say MARY, help me out here will you?!?!  But she turned to the Lord for this aid, and the Lord say, Martha chill, Mary has chosen a good thing…to spend time with me.

Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to him. 
This was the good thing, the good part, that Jesus was referring to.   Sitting, listening, soaking in his words. 

It seems like every time we see Martha and Mary with the Lord, Martha is serving and Mary is focused on Jesus.   Listening to him, washing his feet with perfume, being right there.   They both made the Lord comfortable in their home.   

We need to be seeking the Lord, opening our hearts to him, like these two ladies did.

You know what?  I’m more of a Martha, I want to be working in the background, instead of sitting quietly listening.  Two ways of spending time with the Lord.  Martha needed to learn how not to fret, Mary needed to learn to be involved as well (see how she learned to wash his feet?).  Mary already knew how to sit quiet and listen and soak in his words.  A skill Martha perhaps needed to learn as well…but she learned, perhaps, not to fret.   

Makes me wonder what skills I need to learn yet.

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©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Pearl Seeker: I Gotta Be Me!

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Becky Blackmon paints the picture of three owls in a tree.  Two of the owls are being ordinary owls, but the third is a bit of an odd duck, hanging upside down and doing his own thing.   Life isn’t easy for that owl… and life isn’t easy for people stuck on doing their own thing as well.

Now.. is it bad to be a free spirit?  To march to the beat of a different drummer?  By no means no!!   God made us all different you know?  And he delights in the uniqueness of each of us.  KNOW THIS

That said, Christians should want to be more than their own selves when they love the Lord God, and believe he is their salvation.  We should!   Afterall.. we owe him our life, shouldn’t that influence the way we live and act?  Shouldn’t that influence our love for him and those he has placed in our path?

The more we learn about who God is, the more we see him active in our lives, the more it causes us to want to please him.

How do we get to know him?  By diving into his word.  It’s really the only way.  The more we know God’s word, the more we know God.  The more we know God the more we want to be like him, the more we are transformed by him, within the uniqueness of who we are.  Because you know what?  As we know God more, the more we are aware of just how well God already knows us.  How much he loves us and has forgiven us already. 

The more we get to know God the more we realize this world isn’t about me, myself and I.  It’s not self-oriented, it’s God-oriented. Which means we can love others as we love ourselves, it means we can lean to God’s direction and not our own.   A Pearl Seeker is one who seeks after pleasing God. 

If we say we want to please God but we don’t
– read from his word daily
– talk to him daily
– live or do what he asks daily

Then how can we say we want to please him?

 Take the steps you need.  Start slowly, build your faith, build your communication with the one that called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Be a person of faith!

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites